Survey of the Day: Police Officers Admit They Downplay Crimes

A survey of retired New York City police officers shows a "rotten barrel," according to the study authors.

New York City police officers are pressured to "artificially reduce crime rates," according to an anonymous survey of nearly 2,000 retired officers.

The survey, conducted via email by researchers at Molloy College, found that many officers had downgraded crimes to lesser offenses. Others had discouraged victims from filing complaints. The goal? To get better stats, something that's long been a goal of the New York Police Department.

One officer, who retired in 2005, wrote that he heard a deputy commissioner say in a “pre-CompStat meeting” that a commanding officer “should just consolidate burglaries that occurred in an apartment building and count as one.”